A Review of Research on the Golden Section Hypothesis in Art and Design.

McWhinnie, Harold J.

The Golden Section as a concept and a term has had a long history in the arts as well as the sciences. It is one of those concepts that has undergone much recent research, which is presented as part of this review. The research is considered in relation to the design fields and to the creation of visual forms rather than aesthetic preference studies. This review of the Golden Section is limited to psychological rather than philosophical studies. A basic assumption in this and other studies is that the study of aesthetic preference has a prior relationship to decision making in design, art, and art education. The material is reviewed in terms of the current interest in symmetry theory in both the arts and sciences. The evolution of chaos theory and the new science of chaos makes the studies that this paper reviews all the more relevant. (Author/SG)